I've always been meaning to do a little survey for this blog. I have no idea who reads, what you want or not want, or what you guys do enjoy seeing here. I blog mainly because I love to share my thoughts on decorating and what I do. Having no idea if people actually reads the posts leads me to not do it often. Well, I know some people do drop by, but it's just too quiet here I feel like I'm talking to myself, which I actually sometimes do. HAHA

Anyway, I'd just like to thank everyone who took the time to respond to the survey. (If you haven't yet, please do! ) Now I know I'm actually talking to real people. It feels good to read your comments and I'm quite amused that some visit here everyday. WHY?? I feel so guilty now for posting so rarely knowing that some comes here daily. But really, to everyone who took part on the survey, thank you so much! I'll take all your answers to heart and give more time to improve Decor Me Happy. You guys inspire me!

I'm also surprised to know that people prefer design projects posts. My love for the Tiny House made me assume that people love it too! HAHA... But I guess because every Tiny House posts are construction related story (boring), it's not that interesting to many of you yet. BUT that won't be for long, we're on the last stretch for the 3rd and loft level so we'll be doing the decorating soon enough. That is if we finally find the time to sort our boxes upon boxes of mess.

Here's a little something I posted on instagram (@elleuydecor) recently...

Would you believe that those are taken at the loft office? What was once just an airspace above the bf's former room, is now a room that can hold furniture! Just a few cabinet knobs to be installed and we're done at the loft. That's where we'll store all our stuff to be sorted before they go to their permanent space when everything is done. So not looking forward to the sorting part.

Last night, they hook-up our electricity temporarily so now, we get to enjoy the space at night too! I'll be posting a full Tiny House update very soon, I have a lot of photos I don't even know where to start. Soon enough, the Tiny House Renovation will be the Tiny House Decoration. hehehe...

I've been in this blogging arena for five years already, what the what?!? I started oh so innocently because we renovated our old house, I have a lot of free time, and I just wanted to share. But that hobby turned into actual projects and this blog of mine got neglected. I'm not complaining though since I love my job, but I love this blog as well. And this blog helps me get projects too, you see, when prospect clients see/read the blog, they can know me better. They'll know my thoughts, they'll better understand my taste, and they'll just feel more comfortable since there's an instant connection. I don't know if I'm just imagining that, but that's how I feel when I meet a reader client.

Anyway, I've been meaning to give more time to this thing. If you've read the change of blog name story, and other random thoughts I posted, I've been telling that I'll post more often but that did not happen just yet. I don't know, maybe because I have no idea if people does actually go here. Haha...

I mean, I know people read, I can see it in the stats, some send emails telling me they love the blog (THANK YOU!!), but there are just few comments here and there. I understand though, I read a lot of blogs and I rarely comment. So I get you. But comments does make my day sometimes, just knowing someone out there is interested in my thoughts and house stories, is awesome.

So if you could just help me out, I'd love to know your thoughts. Here's a very short survey that would help me better understand what you like, don't like, and just a little something for me just to know that you're there. That my random ramblings are heard, to inspire me to produce more and better content. Whatever, just knowing you guys do drop by will be awesome. "Everything is awesome, everything is cool when you're part of a team..." If you haven't saw the Lego movie, please disregard the last sentence. Haha...

The house is coming along, the third and loft level are on the final stages of renovation. We have brick walls installed (YAY!!) and paint are on most walls. We can see the finish line for these levels, but the first and second floor, well that's another story. Probably a story for next month. We'll get there, sooner rather than later. :)

But since we're working from up down, the loft is almost done. It will be where you'll see us work, get creative, or be lazy and lounge on the daybed all day. Haha.. We actually discussed if we should put two lounge chairs in lieu of the daybed, but ultimately, our nap loving self won the argument, so daybed it is!

Anyways, this space is the most controversial space for us. Decisions we're not easily made and lots of debate and discussions ensue. For the bedroom and living areas, we have the same vision and ideas so it's quite easy to come up with a final plan. But the loft, not so much.

December

The layout we've already settled a long time ago. We'll have a shared table in the middle, and the bf will have one side of the office, and I'll have the other side. Basically, we can decorate our own side as we wish. But of course, we still have to discuss or it will look like a hodge podge of stuff and it won't make any sense.

January

If it were up to me, I want a clean white blank walls to contrast the navy living area on the third level. But the bf is not so sold to white, he likes black. The exact opposite. Haha.. It's actually fine with me since I like black walls as well so yeah black it is. BUT, I don't want an all black room, I want a place for the eyes to rest. So upper walls and ceiling will be white. We settled that quite easily.

I made a little mock-up of what the office would look like. Just edited the December progress photo above so this the same view as that. Black walls, white uppers and ceiling.

The Plan

PINK! Can you see the pink on "her side" ? Oh wait, I mean blush, or pale peach, or according to the bf, rosy white. Well ladies and gentlemen, that wall is the subject of a much heated argument.

Me: "I want blush walls on my side"

BF: "Blush?? That's just pink."

Me: "Ok I want pink walls."

BF: "No."

Me: "You've got your black walls!"

BF: "You like black walls, I hate pink."

(he's got a point.)

Me: "It's not pink, it's a very pale peach."

BF: "That's still pink. Show me photos."

Me: Hurriedly searched for photos of pale peach walls and showed the bf

BF: "No. No. No. Maybe."

(He said maybe on the palest peach I showed)

BF: "Do a sample first before doing the whole wall."

Me: "Okay!!! :) :) :)"

That is obviously not the heated (and very english) version of the argument, as it's longer, in tagalog, and not as calm as that. But in the end, the Bf gave in to what I love, and I'm now a happy person with a rosy white walls. Haha

Thank you Bf, I know how much you hate don't like pink yet here we are with a pink wall in our office. Means a lot! I stuck with the plan of having a very pale blush color. I don't like baby pink nor bubblegum pink, I just want it to be a barely there color, just enough contrast to the white uppers and ceiling.

Ok enough with that wall. Here's the view looking up the loft. (hello navy!) The left side will have cyclone wire, same thing used in fence, and to the right we'll have the stairs. Oh the stairs, can't wait to have those installed so we'll not have to climb up the scaffolding to get to the loft!

On the opposite side of the loft, the stairs/fence side, we installed big upper cabinets to maximized storage and ceiling height. At first, the Bf is suggesting to have storage/shelves all around the loft since we have high ceilings, but I really love the openness of the space so we compromised and put a big one on one side. You can see the base of the cabinet on the photo above. It's quite spacious, though hard to get to. It will be for rarely used big items such as Christmas decor (Christmas agad nasa isip?!) and luggages (feeling nag tatravel?!) Hahaha

We'll have three shelves each on our side. We bump out the wall in the middle to house the tv and run wires so we'll have the shelves in a niche. Though it's quite shallow and I have no idea what to put in here. Small books and our collection of decorative stuff probably. It's 8" in depth, since we don't want to bump the wall out too much, and the shelves should be the same depth as the wall. Now that I think about it, we should have made it 10". But no, we won't redo it so we'll just not buy big books.

The space from the middle shared table to this wall is not that big, so we can't put anything too obtrusive and huge on our side walls. As for my side, I'll have a storage cabinet to the right of the window, and I'll hang my fave framed peacock above it. It's currently above my bed right now and I just love it. Plus it's black so it relates to the room.

Above, we have 4 awning windows that will most likely always be open. Had them since this is the highest point of the entire house which means hot air goes here. Open windows to release heat, or at least that's what I'm hoping for. So far, it's really not that humid in here, but what do I know, it's not even summer yet so wish us luck.

Again, here's the vague moodboard I did...

We'll have a lot more stuff than this, and we'll hang a DIY chandelier made by the Bf, I'll share them with you once it's done. This week and next, we'll finish the fence, stairs, and the floors so we can start moving items in here to free up the second floor so work can start on lower levels. The status of those spaces is a far cry from this. Third and loft = finishing, first and second = starting.

We're really hoping to be done by Bf's birthday by end March, but with all the work yet to be done, might not be possible. So I just wish that all left to do after that would be the first level. Gonna push it for these last few weeks of work and we'll have friends over end of March regardless of status of renovation. We'll have them sit through dust. Haha...

I can't believe we're past the half-year mark! 6 months!!! It happened all too quickly yet too slowly which is quite confusing. Six months flew by, yet it's been months and we're not yet done. Normally, for other home expansion / construction, we should be about done by now. But since we're not going the typical route, it's been such a drag. Exciting, yes. But we're becoming so much more impatient these days that we are very close to completion. We can see a house, we are in it most days, yet we can't put our stuff in here, we can't design and decorate. But I know it will be over soon enough and we will be able to do whatever we want with it. But for now, here's where we're at.

We've left you with no interior walls on the last update, like this photo below. Exterior walls and insulation in place, but nothing inside. This is the loft area which will be our shared office.

This is where we are now. Drywall installed, ready to be painted. And we're going black in this room. 2 walls will be black, and one blush pink. It sounds weird but it will be good promise. I made a little moodboard for this area but it's on the other computer so I'll post a separate entry about that.

The ceiling and upper walls up to the beam will be white to keep in bright despite the black walls. We built a false wall in the middle of the room to recess the tv, and we'll have recessed shelves on both sides. His and hers sides. It will all make sense when I show you the moodboard. :)

We've got a high ceiling in here, and you know how much I love high ceilings. It will keep even the smallest room from feeling too cramped. Big windows and high ceilings are small spaces best friend. The action plan for this house is to finish the upper areas first and work down. Hence this loft is looking a a bit closer to being done compared to the rest of the house. Which is ironic since we don't have stairs yet going to the loft, we need to finish the walls where the stairs will sit first before installation. So we climb ladder and scaffolding just to appreciate this space. Haha..

Speaking of stairs, we now have one complete stairs from first to third floor! We've reconfigured the existing stairs on the first level since it's taking so much space. I'll show you next time but right now, the first floor is such a mess, it's basically a stock room. That would be the very last area to be covered so that update will not come soon. Haha..

Since the original structure is only two floors, we constructed this stairs going to the third level. I don't have photos yet but we already have railings! Hooray! We'll be painting the walls, railings, and steel portion white, and we'll do the steps in a natural wood finish.

Looking down the stairs from the third level. All the steps are purchased second hand.

This is the only photo I have of the railings but they are now all done and painted with primer. :)

Let's get back up the third level. I think this will be my favorite area, with the navy walls and cognac leather sofa, with subway kitchen tiles, and brick walls.. I'm going to love this space!! Haha.. But lets get back to reality first. It will be a few months more before I can have all those.

Here's a shot looking up the loft when they just started installing walls.

Standing at the loft looking into the high ceiling part of the living room. Wall installation done.

*To see the floor plan and to make sense of all this mess, click here.

Windows, lots and lots of them!

First coat of the navy walls!! I just saw this today and it's all sorts of wonderful. I'm a little afraid the dark walls will make this space, well, dark. But it doesn't, at all. Because of all the windows, it's still so bright in here and the walls just gives the space richness and some drama.

Here's a close-up shot of the color. Instead of purchasing the expensive custom colors from the big depots, we just used Davies sun and rain elastomeric paint for outdoors. I'm thinking if it's good for outdoors, then it might be fine indoors right? Haha.. It's called delft blue, and it's a really good navy blue. It's not so dark, but it's still rich with just a hint of green.

The wall with all the windows will be brick. Can't wait to purchase those and have them installed, it's going to be great. That's what we keep telling ourselves to have a little more patience. Haha!

That's about it inside. As for the exterior, well, it still looks the same, except for one little detail I haven't showed you yet...

BALCONY!!! Yep, we managed to install a balcony in this tiny house. We've always wanted an outdoor space. Before we came up with the final plan for this house, we knew we wanted a rooftop area for the view and some outdoors. But since it's not possible with our form of construction, we settled with a balcony on the roof side of the main house. Which technically is still a roof top right? :)

And our sunset view from the balcony ain't bad either...

Can't wait to have proper chairs for the balcony so we can enjoy this view every sundown. We'll probably be sipping tea, exchanging words of praises on how awesome we are for building a beautiful tiny house. Haha!

HELLO

Hello, this is Elle Uy from Manila Philippines.

Decor Me Happy is a chronicle of my work as a decorator, our life in the "Tiny" house, endless design inspiration, and a place to share my mostly chaotic thoughts about my pursuit of happy homes and the randomness that is called life.

*Photos on this site are either the author's own or from the web. Photos taken from elsewhere are credited but unfortunately, some sources can't be tracked. If you found your photo posted here and wants proper credit or wants it taken down, please let me know via email.

Feel free to use my photos on your blogs, all I ask are proper credit and link back to this site. Thank you.